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Seeking to overturn a DOJ judgment that its voter photo identification law, passed in May 2011, violates the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the state of South Carolina recently announced that it is suing the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder in federal court. The decision by South Carolina comes as the DOJ is vigorously working to stop the spread of states enacting or implementing voter photo ID laws, prompting fears that the Obama administration is undermining the integrity of the upcoming 2012 elections. In December 2011, the DOJ blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law from taking effect...

The author of a proposed constitutional amendment to require a photo ID when voting is offering an olive branch to the bill’s most vocal opponent. “When this passes… I would expect the League of Women Voters to work with us,” said state Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, Republican from Big Lake. The League is not accepting. “If it passes the Legislature, we will continue to educate voters. If it passes [in November], we will have to take a look at both options -- try to make it work or go to court,” says Laura Wang, executive director of the League of Women...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina's top prosecutor says the U.S. Justice Department was wrong to block South Carolina from requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote. Attorney General Alan Wilson asks a judge to overturn the decision by the federal government in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The Justice Department in December rejected South Carolina's law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

Proponents say elections will be more secure; opponents say certain individuals will be unfairly targeted. Secretary of State Matt Schultz jumped into one of the most partisan issues in electoral politics last week when he proposed a new voter photo identification bill. But he did so with a twist. Unique to his proposal is the idea that one voter can vouch for another in place of photo identification, something Schultz hopes will blunt criticism of his plan. Indeed, Schultz used the word “bipartisan” no fewer than 14 times during his Statehouse news conference and in answering questions from the media....

Changes in elections laws have been enacted many times since 1790 when only American white males were legally allowed to vote. Included were the 1870 law that allowed former slaves to vote, in 1920 women’s suffrage came about, in 1924 the Indians Citizenship Act gave Native Americans the right-to-vote and in 1964, the poll tax was banned in all federal elections. These were all considered positive changes.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is set to begin issuing free school identification cards to comply with a new state voter ID law. The university says students can pick up an ID Monday on campus. It pledged last year to offer the cards since the law has a two-year expiration for school IDs that make older IDs invalid. Colleges and universities across the state have debated how to comply with the law, which passed last year. Several UW campuses are taking a similar approach to Madison's policy. The university also launched a website Friday designed to help students on any voting...

A judge weighing one of three lawsuits challenging Wisconsin's new voter ID law said Thursday he needs more time to consider both sides' arguments before he will rule on the state's motion to dismiss the case. After listening to arguments from attorneys for the League of Women Voters, which is seeking to overturn the law, and for Gov. Scott Walker and the state elections board, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess said he couldn't yet rule on the motion but would at a March 9 hearing. He also said he may rule on the merits of the case then. The...

Milwaukee election officials will keep track of how many people are turned away from the polls because of new voter identification and residency rules, the Common Council decided Wednesday. Aldermen unanimously backed Ald. Milele Coggs' resolution to collect the data in the wake of the controversial state law enacted last year. The new law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, starting with the Feb. 21 primary. Voters who don't have one of the acceptable forms of identification will be allowed to cast provisional ballots, but those ballots will not be counted unless the voters return with an...

In Virginia we have had a long standing requirement to show ID's when voting. Many other states do too and some are passing laws to try to, "true the vote" but, of course, these are opposed by the "progressives" as being unnecessary as, "this is a non-existent problem." I'm looking to compile links to proven instances of erroneous voter tallies.

Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices,” Politico reports. The remarks followed a December move by Holder's agents at the Department of Justice to block “South Carolina's new voter ID law from taking effect, claiming that the measure will put an unfair burden on minority voters,” according to an earlier Politico piece. Naturally, the move is endorsed by Ben Jealous and the NAAPoC (I mean really, “CP” in this day and age?)...

Columbia, South Carolina (REUTERS) - The state that fired the first shot in the Civil War is once again battling the government in a racially charged conflict that is drawing heated rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates. South Carolina is in a standoff with Democratic President Barack Obama's administration over a new state law that would require residents to produce a photo ID before they could vote. Federal officials say it could disproportionately keep black voters away from the polls. Republican candidates are waving the banner of states' rights as they tout their small-government credentials.

The guerrilla gotcha artist who punked New Hampshire says his latest ploy — using dead people’s identities to get ballots in the Granite State primary — is no different than what any hard-hitting network news operation does. It’s just another kind of investigative journalism, insists conservative video activist James O’Keefe, who is now facing a state investigation. “There is definitely a double standard against citizen journalists,” said O’Keefe. His undercover stings embarrassed ACORN in 2009, when he posed as a pimp seeking criminal advice from the left-leaning community service organization — and prompted high-level resignations at NPR, after an O’Keefe...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- With a primary election just around the corner, South Carolina’s attorney general is asking for an investigation into possible voter fraud in the state. On Wednesday, Attorney General Alan Wilson asked State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel to review evidence of potential voter fraud in the state. Wilson said the evidence of fraud was uncovered by Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles Kevin Shwedo during an extensive review of data related to the state's new voter identification law. "Director Shwedo's research has revealed evidence that over 900 deceased people appear to have 'voted' in recent...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Video footage provided exclusively to The Daily Caller shows election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday. The bombshell video is the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas. Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said. “Live free or die,” an election worker told one of...

Three of South Carolina’s top political leaders announced Tuesday their plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to block the state’s controversial voter ID law. Attorney General Alan Wilson said he will file a lawsuit within the next two weeks against the Justice Department in Washington D.C. district court. It’s necessary, Wilson said, to protect the integrity of South Carolina elections. “Our intent of the office is to look at this legislation through the litigation process and to ensure that no voter is suppressed in the right to vote and that the integrity of the...

Voter in Ward 9 attempted to vote as a dead man, caught by moderator who knew dead man, Herald's Katy Jordan reports And: Staff_reports @jordankaty Voter who attempted to use dead man's ID was testing system: "I could have gotten away with it. Couldn't I?" he reportedly said

With a dismal record of achievement and forced to accept the bitter harvest of their failed economic and foreign policies, no one should be surprised that Team Obama and the Democrats in Congress are running scared. Nor are the Democrats’ fears irrational. With an historical supermajority in the House and the Senate, Team Obama and Democrats pushed their pet, progressive ideas with a vengeance, spending and borrowing. Yet despite full political power and despite the trillions of dollars thrown into the maw of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi vision of utopia, our nation is left with the nastiest of all financial hangovers as...

The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security today announced that 9,492 photo IDs had been issued for voting purposes from July 1st through December 31st, 2011. The vast majority (8,989) of those issued were non-photo driver licenses converted into photo driver licenses, while 503 were original photo identification cards. Effective January 1st, 2012, a new state law requires citizens to present a federal or state- issued photo ID to vote at the polls. The law also requires the Department of Safety and Homeland Security to issue photo IDs for voting purposes at no charge.

"I will see nutting!" Or, why Eric Holder will remain in office until 2013 at least. A pair of articles from the Washington Times make clear that the White House has a plan for the 2012 election, and that is to guarantee victory for Obama regardless of the outcome of the vote. A large part of it depends on Eric Holder and his continual bastardization of the law. The first comes from Robert Knight and his account of why democrats despise voter id laws: Assistant AG Thomas Perez, the same official who terminated the Black Panther voter intimidation case, ordered...

The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 11 months away, but it’s clear from the Obama administration’s order halting South Carolina’s new photo ID law that the Democrats have already brought a gun to the knife fight. How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb voter fraud?On Dec. 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez sent a letter ordering South Carolina to stop enforcing its photo ID law. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights division that booted charges against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. claims Jim Crow is returning. In a recent speech, Mr. Holder said that attempts by states to pass voter identification laws will disenfranchise minorities, rolling back the clock to the evil days of segregation. He said that a growing number of minorities fear that “the same disparities, divisions and problems” now afflict America as they did in 1965 prior to the Voting Rights Act. According to the Obama administration, our democracy is being threatened by racist Republicans. Hence, the Justice Department must prevent laws requiring a photo ID to vote from being enacted. Mr....

In an outrageous recent fundraising letter the Democratic National Committee solicited funds from the party faithful on the grounds that the DNC was the last remaining bulwark against a series of anti-election-fraud initiatives "in more than 40 states." That's right, the DNC appears to be standing up for potential fraud - presumably because ending it would disenfranchise at least two of its core constituencies: the deceased and double-voters. Across America, Republican and Democratic legislatures have put forth voter identification laws this year to protect the constitutional values of equal protection and one person one vote, and for good reason. Election...

Holder's Racial Politics Eric Holder must be amazed that President Obama was elected and he could become Attorney General. That's a fair inference after the Attorney General last Friday blocked South Carolina's voter ID law on grounds that it would hurt minorities. What a political abuse of law. In a letter to South Carolina's government, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez called the state law—which would require voters to present one of five forms of photo ID at the polls—a violation of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Overall, he noted, 8.4% of the state's registered...

Suffrage: Fresh from using his race as a defense in the Fast and Furious scandal, the attorney general blocks South Carolina's voter photo ID law as discriminatory. Tell that to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Palmetto State can't seem to catch a break from this administration. First, the right-to-work state gets harassed by the National Labor Relations Board over Boeing's expansion into a new plant. Now the Justice Department has blocked a voter ID law passed in May and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley. Both federal actions, along with a Justice Department investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have...

As a new law that will require Tennesseans to show photo identification when they vote goes into effect Jan. 1, Division of Elections officials are continuing their voter outreach efforts. “Our focus, up to this year’s elections and beyond, is educating voters about what this law will mean to them,” said Secretary of State Tre Hargett, who oversees the division. “Our voter outreach efforts so far have been unprecedented. I commend Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins, his staff, county election officials and all the other individuals and groups across the state who have worked so hard to get the message...

The state chairman of Indiana's Democratic Party resigned recently as a probe of election fraud in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary widened... --snip-- The NAACP has asked the United Nations to intervene to block state voter ID laws. It may have an ulterior motive for opposing ballot security measures. An NAACP official was convicted on 10 counts of absentee voter fraud in Tunica County, Miss., in July. Former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, who is black, said vote fraud is rampant in African-American districts like his in Alabama. "The most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African-American community is the wholesale...

DENVER — Starting Jan. 1, getting shark fins, caffeinated beer, cough syrup or a tan is going to be tougher than it was in 2011. The National Conference of State Legislatures issued Monday its annual list of laws set to take effect in 2012, and there was nothing but bad news for connoisseurs of shark-fin soup. Oregon and California passed laws prohibiting the sale, trade, or distribution of the fins, which are considered a delicacy in China. California also became the first state in the nation to require a prescription for obtaining any drug containing dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in...

Breaking News on Fox Justice Department Rejects South Carolina Voter ID Law December 23, 2011 | COLUMBIA, S.C. – The U.S. Department of Justice rejected South Carolina's voter ID law on Friday, saying the new policy doesn't do enough to ensure that minority voters aren't discriminated against. "Until South Carolina succeeds in substantially addressing the racial disparities described above, however, the state cannot meet its burden of proving that, when compared to the benchmark standard, the voter identification requirements proposed ... will not have a retrogressive effect," Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote Friday in a letter to the...

Is it racist to require people to show a photo ID when they vote? You need a photo ID for nearly any meaningful transaction, such as cashing checks, including government checks. If this simple requirement “suppresses� the vote, maybe we need to ask why it’s such a great idea to push for universal suffrage for every adult who is merely breathing. Of course, even this latter requirement would suppress the vote in Chicago and New Orleans, where dead people get to vote all the time – and do so cheerfully! In a speech Tuesday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library...

AUSTIN, Tex. — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday entered the turbulent political waters of voting rights, signaling that the Justice Department would be aggressive in reviewing new voting laws that civil rights advocates say will dampen minority participation in next year’s elections. Declaring in a speech that protecting ballot access for all eligible voters “must be viewed not only as a legal issue but as a moral imperative,” Mr. Holder urged Americans to “call on our political parties to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success and, instead, achieve success...

Gaffe-prone attorney general Eric Holder came under new Republican fire on Wednesday after calling for an end to state laws requiring voters to show identification at polling stations. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas immediately slammed Holder. "Voter identification laws are constitutional and necessary to prevent fraud at the ballot box," Cornyn said. "Facing an election challenge next year, this administration has chosen to target efforts by the states to protect the democratic process." The increased pressure on Holder came on the same day that 22 House Republicans proposed a vote of no confidence in him for his handling of the...

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the State of Wisconsin on Tuesday over a new law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification, charging that the measure violates the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit says that the state is infringing on some citizens' right to vote and to be treated equally under the law and amounts to a kind of poll tax on voters who lack the documents needed to get an approved ID. Republican lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker, who is named in the lawsuit along with a long list of other state officials, have said they believe the measure...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, claiming Wisconsin's new voter identification law imposes a severe burden on the right to vote - the second lawsuit filed in the last two months. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Milwaukee, the ACLU, the ACLU of Wisconsin and National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty asked the court to declare the law unconstitutional and award plaintiffs their attorneys' fees. "This lawsuit is the opening act in what will be a long struggle to undo the damage done to the right to vote by strict photo ID...

Tom Blumer at Newsbusters ran a story yesterday on a Politico report on the approval of the Machinists Union’s contract extension: On Wednesday, the Politico ran a story about the International Association of Machinists Union at Boeing agreeing to approve a contract extension, the result of which ultimately led to the National Labor Relations Board dropping its controversial decision to prevent the company from beginning to operate a mostly-constructed plant in South Carolina. Politico ran their story with this photo: With the liberal media, and the ACLU in full tilt rejection of voter ID requirements that will prevent voter fraud,...

The Obama administration on Tuesday will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws in several states that could depress turnout among minorities and others who helped elect the president in 2008. Â… With the presidential campaign heating up,Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the stateÂ’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday. Holder will speak at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Libary and Museum in Austin, Tex.,...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is taking its racial grievances against America to the United Nations this weekend. On Saturday the NAACP will offer evidence of what it considers a coordinated effort to disenfranchise black and Latino voters in a racist attempt to limit minority voting. According to the civil rights group, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and NAACP Legal Defense Fund voting rights attorney Ryan Haygood will present findings from their recent report “Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America.” “It’s been more than a century since we’ve seen such a tidal...

A Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday on the House floor that Republican legislators around the country are purposefully trying to deny blacks the right to vote by pushing for voter identification laws. “It’s no coincidence that a disproportionate number of these affected voters come from communities of color as well as the poor, the elderly and students,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Having been born and raised in Texas, this certainly looks like a poll tax to me, which those of us remember as a way to prevent African Americans from voting. These...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom some pundits had written off as the GOP's nominee, may find a second coming in Iowa, if new poll data holds up. As Mitt Romney's campaign has suffered a startling decline in recent weeks, only to see Newt Gingrich eclipse the former Massachusetts governor's front-runner status, the battle for the Iowa caucuses set for Jan. 3 has become a wide-open race. New survey data prepared for the Perry campaign and shared by a source close within the campaign shows that the Texas governor may be poised to do much better in next month’s Iowa caucuses...

The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to "block the vote" for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election -- a charge those governments vehemently deny. The nation's biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures "designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color." The report catalogued several categories of laws that have been passed largely by Republican-dominated legislatures and which...

I understand that the NAACP opposes voter-ID laws. Given the long history of fighting against uses of state law to deny blacks and other minorities the franchise until the Civil Rights Movement prevailed, their deep skepticism over proposed stricter enforcement of eligibility laws can’t help but recall echoes of voter suppression in their communities, even if the new laws are innocent of any racial animus. We still have plenty of mistrust that will take generations to undo, especially given that we still have those with living memories of having been denied the right to vote. Still, if the NAACP wants...

The Texas voter ID law, one of Gov. Rick Perry's top priorities during the 2011 Legislature, has been stalled by the U.S. Justice Department, which is insisting on demographic information about voters that state election officials say is virtually impossible to provide. Texas Republicans expressed dismay Thursday after Justice Department officials said they need voter information about race and ethnicity before they can approve the controversial law, which is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. Republicans pushed the Voter ID measure to ensure all voters are properly identified and eligible to vote. The new law would require voters to...

*President Obama and national and GOP officials agree on one thing. The battle for the White House in 2012 will likely again come down to who wins the handful of election deciding battleground states. At the top of that list are Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Virginia. These are the states that have swung back and forth between the GOP and the Democrats for the past quarter century. Florida arguably and very dubiously put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000. Ohio did much to put Bush back in the White House in 2004. In 2008, both...

Wasserman Schultz accuses GOP of rigging elections with 'suppression laws'By Pete Kasperowicz - 11/16/11 08:43 PM ET Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) on Wednesday night said Republican governors and legislatures are purposefully pressing for the enactment of voter identification laws in order to suppress Democratic voter turnout in the 2012 election. "State legislatures are attempting to impose voting restrictions that are the modern day equivalent of poll taxes and literacy tests," she said on the House floor. "We cannot allow state legislatures to drag our nation backward in what is nothing more than a political quest to...

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced a bill in Congress Wednesday that would prohibit all states from requiring photo identification at the polls. “The Voter Access Protection Act” comes at a time when states across the nation, including Minnesota, have moved to establish photo ID laws as a protection against voter fraud. Legislatures in 20 states introduced such a bill in 2011, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. “This legislation would prohibit one of the most pernicious forms of voter suppression, requiring a strict photo identification card at the polls,” said the bill’s co-author, Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., in...

The House Judiciary Committee hosted a Department of Homeland Security oversight hearing last Wednesday with Secretary Janet Napolitano. As you may recall, the House Homeland Security Committee shares a certain amount of legislative jurisdiction with the House Judiciary Committee regarding the Department of Homeland Security. While the Homeland Security Committee covers border security issues, most immigration legislation is covered by the Judiciary Committee. As a result, during the authorization process, the Secretary of Homeland Security is often called to testify before two committees. It’s not a fun process for the Secretary to get grilled and asked obscure questions. I might...

A year from now, the people of Wisconsin will be going to the polls to exercise one of the most cherished rights of our democracy: the right to vote. It is the fundamental pillar of our democracy that in the voting booth we are all equal - black or white, young or old, rich or poor. When we cast our ballot, we all raise an equal voice to determine the shape of our government. Wisconsin legislators would deny that right. Strict new voter identification laws were proposed in 34 states, including our own. Wisconsin's new voter identification restrictions, which passed...

In 2010 Alabama Democrat Artur Davis left Congress taking his 7% American Conservative Union voting record with him. As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus he was a reliable knee jerk liberal who voted for and against Bills that would either help America’s enemies or hurt America’s people. While in a state of total delusion Davis believed his lifetime 22% ACU rating could get him elected governor of Alabama. When reality tapped him on the shoulder, Davis left elective politics and went to be a Washington D.C, lawyer. Given his record, it is a refreshing surprise to note his...

Voter ID: now, here’s a profile in courage Sort of, anyway. In this article Artur Davis, former Democratic Congressman from the 7th District of Alabama and an African-American, recognizes that voter ID laws can be good and are not inherently racist when well-drafted. So, better late than never, Mr. Davis! He starts his piece with an unusually forthright declaration and admission, which fits right in with the theme of this blog: I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws — I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one — and I wish I had gotten it right when...

It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election. Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities. They insist...

In an interview with Philadelphia radio host Michael Smerconish last week, President Obama for the first time denounced the wave of new laws passed by Republicans designed to restrict the right to vote for millions of Americans. Said the president: I will say that my big priority is making sure that as many people are participating in our democracy as possible. Some of these moves in some of the other states that we’ve seen try to make it tougher to vote, restricting ballot access, making it hard on seniors, making it hard on young people. I think that’s a big...